Wherever You Are
by FullMetal Alchemistress
Summary: TWOSHOT - Rose is dimension jumping, trying to find her Doctor, and finds herself in NYC right after a certain alien invasion. After she disappears, the Doctor just misses her. The Doctor is not in the best of moods and Cap doesn't do anything to lift his spirits. But the Doctor does manage to find someone to sympathize with.


**THIS WILL BE A TWO-SHOT**

**I needed things and this supplied me with half of my things. The next chapter is what sparked the idea for this. In Marvel Universe time, this is after Avengers but before Iron Man 3. In Who time, for Rose in this chapter it's while she's jumping around looking for the Doctor in Journey's End.**

Rose squeezed her eyes shut as the world around her blinked out of existence and reformed around her in an instant. The immense energy blew her hair around her face and disoriented her for a moment.

The screeching of tires forced her back into the present and her eyes flew back open to focus off the lines of cars surrounding her. She was looking, more specifically, into the windshield of a bright yellow car, the driver of which had his arms in front of his face.

"Don't shoot me!" he heard his muffled screams. Less pleading shouts behind him floated up to her and she quickly glanced around at the traffic problem she seemed to be causing.

"Sorry!" she yelled, remembering she had a huge gun in her hands. "So sorry!" she yelled, darting through the angry stopped cars to the edge of the street. "What city is this?" she asked someone passing by, who took one look at her gun and began to briskly run away.

Rose let out an angry breath, picked a direction, and began to walk, causing a scene as she went. If she didn't hurry and figure out where she was, she was sure to attract unwanted attention. By the accents of the screaming strangers, she concluded she was somewhere in North America—a big city, but _where_?

She grabbed a man by his shoulders and forced him to look at her. "I'm not going to hurt you but I need to know where I am," she demanded quickly.

"N-New York," he stuttered. "New York City." He shakily handed her his newspaper.

"Thank you," she smiled, letting him go to flee. New York City in 2012, she noted. Too far ahead in time, wrong city, too. She turned in the opposite direction of the fleeing man and darted down an alley. It was muscle memory at this point. Wrong place? Lay low until the cannon recharged.

But this trip was suddenly very out of the ordinary when a shiny black SUV blocked the end of the alley and a swarm of men was suddenly surrounding her, grabbing her, ripping her gun away from her.

"Stop!" she demanded, landing a few good blows on the uniformed men. "I'm not here to hurt anyone!" They ignored her and threw her into the back of the van.

XXX

Rose paced around the metal room they had stuck her in roughly. She pressed her lips together. She couldn't leave this place without her gun. Sure, she could always get a replacement, but she was rather _fond _of that gun.

In any case, in a compartment in the gun was the very thing she needed to leave. So it was a moot point. No gun, no go.

She froze and spun around when the door opened noisily and a well built man walked in, dark skin, long coat, eye patch, and an expression that demanded no nonsense.

Dear, God, what had she gotten herself into?

"Are you the government?" she asked suddenly. "Like, FBI?"

"Rose Tyler," he greeted, letting her know with those two words that he was in total command of the situation. He sat down casually into a chair on the other side of the metal table she was standing in front of and gestured to the seat in front of her. "I'm Director Fury. We ran your prints off the gun we took from you. According to what we found, you're supposed to be dead."

"Yeah, well, if you'd just give me back my gun, I'll get right back to that," she told him, taking the seat after a second. "Look, I'm not here to hurt anyone, I'm just looking for someone."

"With a gun?" he asked, eyebrows raised. "You're looking for someone with a gun the size of a golden retriever and you're tellin' me you're not here to _hurt _anyone? Explain to me why I find that hard to believe."

Rose closed her eyes and took a slow breath, reminding herself that this wasn't her universe. "Where am I?" she asked calmly.

He leaned forward, elbows on the table. "You're in the United States—SHIELD headquarters in New York City to be exact."

"SHIELD? Is that like UNIT?" she questioned.

The man's one good eye narrowed. "You could say that. We're a little more specialized, though. Who do you work for?"

"Torchwood," she responded immediately. She knew if she wanted any chance of getting her gun back, cooperation was key. And these guys did not seem to want to kill her just yet. "Like I said, I'm looking for someone. I'm not really from around here. It's complicated."

Fury smiled, let out a chuckle, and shook his head. "Ms. Tyler, I'm the man whose job it is to _deal _with complicated."

"I really don't think you're paid to deal with _this _kind of complicated," she pressed.

"Try me."

Every excuse, every story the Doctor had ever made up to cover their identities ran through her head. A million possible things she could have told this man, and the thing that came out was not what she had planned to say. "My name is Rose Tyler, and I'm jumping across different times and universes to look for a man."

"A man? Who?"

Rose looked at him incredulously. "I just told you I'm traveling through time and space and you want to know who I'm looking for?"

He nodded. "Well, if you're from a different dimension then you won't know—a few weeks ago we had an alien invasion here in New York. A god brought an alien race called the Chitauri to take over earth. We stopped them."

"Chitauri are nasty," Rose agreed. "That's why you lot are so on edge about me. Strange girl randomly appears in the middle of the city and stirs up a tiny bit of trouble."

"I'm glad you understand."

"What I don't understand is what I'm doing here."

Their conversation froze when the door opened and a dark haired man stepped in, followed by a stunning blond and one of the uniformed men she recognized from earlier.

"Sorry about your nose," she muttered as he walked towards them, her gun in his hand. His eyes shot up to her before he handed the gun to Fury and quickly left.

"You're here," Fury started, dropping her gun onto the table loudly, "so that Stark can take apart your gun."

The dark haired man—"Stark"—grinned and held out a hand to her which she shook hesitantly.

"Tony Stark is the best weapons expert in America."

"On the planet," Tony correct. "Please, call me Tony. This is Capsicle. But you probably already know that." He gestured to the Blond who shot him a dirty look.

"Uhm," Rose stuttered.

"Steve Rogers," the man corrected, holding out his hand.

"Ms. Tyler isn't from around here. She's dead."

Rose rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

Fury stood up so that Tony could sit in front of the gun, tools in hand. "So why exactly is such a small thing like you packing such big artillery."

"If you knew the aliens I was fighting, you'd understand," she told them, looking Tony dead in the eye. She knew just from looking at him that he'd seen more than the others in the room. Steve's eyes were old. He'd seen a lot, as had Fury. But Tony's—Tony had seen something he couldn't explain. She knew it. She saw the same look on her own face in the mirror.

When Tony went rigid at her words, she knew she was right.

"That so," he muttered, diving into unscrewing the casing of the gun.

"The stars are going out."

"Where?" Fury demanded. "Where are you from that the stars are going out?"

Rose's jaw worked as she fought against everything the Doctor had taught her about not messing with things. But there was no way she'd get out of here if she didn't tell the truth. And it seemed like these guys were trying to do the same things she was—save the planet from hostile aliens.

"I'm from a parallel universe," she said finally. "I was born here in this world, but then something happened a few years ago and I got stuck in a parallel universe."

"What is this powered by?" Tony asked quickly as he gently placed the top casing on the table beside him.

"It's alien tech. Some sort of super pressurized energy."

"You're using alien technology to fight aliens?" Steve asked, face judgmental.

Rose shrugged. "I've seen a _lot _of aliens and not all of them are bad. Some are willing to trade goods and information. Where I come from we have a lot of allies."

"And just as many enemies, I'll bet," Fury muttered.

Rose shrugged again. "No different than humans are with each other."

Tony raised his screwdriver at that. "What's this?" He held up a round device and Rose instantly straightened.

"Please, I'm asking you this with everything that I am, please, _please _do not mess with that. It's the only way I can get home," she pleaded.

Fury looked ready to order Tony to ignore her but he just nodded and placed it on the table near her. "How does it work?" he asked instead, moving to work more on the gun itself, removing pieces at a steady rate.

Rose had seen it done before whenever it needed to be cleaned, so she was fairly sure she could manage to put it back together if she had to.

"I'm not sure of the specifics exactly, I just know it rips a hole in the void—the space between your world and mine—and allows me to move through it."

Finally, all the parts and pieces were laid out on the table and Tony sat back. It had taken him literally minutes to tear through it. "This is nothing new. We've seen something similar that Thor showed us," Tony murmured to Fury. He picked up the transporter. "So, Ms. Tyler—"

"Rose."

"How do you plan on leaving us, then?"

"She's not," Cap spoke for the first time in a while. "Because she's not a threat."

"How do you figure?" Fury asked, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall.

"She's answered every question that was asked of her. She's not worried, not jittery. She's calm."

"Natasha can pull off the same thing in a situation like this," Fury reminded him.

"But Rose isn't a threat."

"Boy scout can be a little trusting sometimes," Tony muttered at her, beginning to replace all the pieces back together.

Steve shot him a slow glance. "What I'm trying to say is that she knows the way out is cooperation."

"I've been in this sort of situation before," Rose agreed. "When dealing with authorities that know what aliens _are_, it's best to wait until they are convinced I'm not here to harm anything or anyone. Not humans anyways.

"And as for how I'm going to get out of here—well, I just have to wait for the dimension cannon back home to recharge and then I use that—" she nodded at the device on the table, "to call my ride."

"Ripping a hole through this void doesn't sound stable," Fury noted.

Rose nodded. "Normally, no. But the universes are disappearing. Small things at first. The void and my universe barely exist."

Cap pushed himself out of his chair and headed for the door. "This is getting to be a bit much right now. Let me know if you need me," he muttered.

"Well I don't believe much of it. I've got other things to attend to right now," Fury said. "Stay put, Ms. Tyler. We'll speak more later."

The door shut behind him and the room was thrust into near silence. Tiny clicks echoed in the room as Tony screwed things back into place.

"I believe you," he muttered quietly.

"Because you've seen something," she accused.

"What have _you _seen?" he countered.

"I've seen whole other worlds. I've seen the end of the earth in millions of years, I've seen spaceships, aliens, other cultures. I've seen horrifying creatures that only want to do harm."

"The others don't know," he said after a second. "I saw a whole other galaxy a few weeks ago in a worm hole. A worm hole that was being used as a doorway for an alien species to invade us." He shrugged and continued working. "Not to mention Thor is a god from another realm. Who am I to say you're not from a parallel world?"

She smiled as they slipped back into silence. Not much later, Tony finished putting the pieces of her gun back together. He leaned back in his chair and wiped his hands on a rag, staring at the gun.

"How long have you been doing this?" he asked hesitantly.

Rose pursed her lips and looked at the ceiling, calculating in her head. "Coupla years, I guess. You lose count when you time travel."

"How do you…" he gestured vaguely with his hand, clearly uncomfortable with the topic of conversation.

"How do I what? Do this?" she guessed.

"How do you cope with it all?" he asked plainly.

Rose smiled kindly. "Find someone, Mr. Stark," she advised. "Find someone you can talk to that you trust with all that you are. What you saw might not make sense—seeing as how you're a man of science—of what can be explained, but you can't dwell on it. Find someone or something to distract you for a while. It'll pass."

Tony leaned over and offered her his hand. "Thanks." Rose returned the gesture and watched as he headed for the door. "Fury won't be back. Leave when you can. Good luck finding whoever it is you're looking for."

"The Doctor," she murmured across the room. "He's called the Doctor. So if you find him before I do—"

"I'll let him know the cute blond says hi." And with that, Rose was alone in her cell with all her tech. Now to wait out the recharge.

XXX

The whole floor of the building shook roughly and Tony's head jerked up from his work. He darted out into the hall to see Fury and Steve running down the hall towards the room Rose was being held in.

"Why did you leave her alone?" Fury was demanding of guards outside the door. He rounded on Tony as he skidded to a halt in front of them. "And why did _you _leave her with her tech?"

"She's not a threat," Tony snapped as Fury rushed to unlock the door to the viewing room next door.

Rose's head perked up from her gun when they were all inside, looking at her through a sheet of one way glass. Somehow, though, she knew they were there. She cast them a toothy grinned and waved just before she disappeared in a blinding burst of light.

**I know some people might say Tony is a little too open in this, talking about feels and whatnot, but I figure this is not something he is used to dealing with—he can't just ask JARVIS or google "How to cope with seeing an alien universe." This was a one-time opportunity to ask someone who has seen even more than he had.**

**That's my 2 cents.**

**THIS WILL BE A TWO-SHOT.**


End file.
